Navigating the impending Social Care Crisis Through Effective Prevention

0​1 May 2024

Why delivering prevention right now is even more important.

If you are delivering prevention, there are some barriers you may need to overcome.

We appreciate it can be hard to engage people when it comes to preventative technology programmes. Our experience and our research into the private pay market is that this is often due to reticence from individuals to change their behaviour or to invest.

At Taking Care our aim is to make personal alarms proactive, life-saving devices that can help customers and service users lead happier, more independent, and empowering lives in the homes they love for longer.

Understanding the barriers to prevention.

We recently conducted a YouGov survey of 500 people over 55+ from England with questions around awareness of falls in the elderly and thoughts around proactive preventative interventions. Part of this consumer research aimed to answer the question ‘What is the easiest route to prevention for you that requires the smallest amount of behaviour change?’ which we hoped would help us shape our service propositions going forward.

An encouraging 87% said that preventing a fall before it happens is most beneficial, rather than dealing with a fall once it occurs. Clearly there seems to be a deep pool of opportunity to engage with older adults on the benefits of falls-prevention, and we feel this provides Local Authorities with a clear path to delivering improved health outcomes because of fall-reduction programmes.

Our findings also demonstrated there is a clear interest, and willingness, to engage in preventive activities amongst the older population and a clear recognition of the benefits for them in terms of fall-reduction (a major impact on long term health).

Barriers do not appear to be around the lack of understanding about falls in the elderly. Our research shows that people understand that the risks of falling ramp up with age and can affect older adults, even those in good health, with 62% of respondents saying they were aware/very aware of this.

There was also a good awareness around the impact that falls, or the fear of falling, have on loss of confidence, independence and change in older people, with 74% saying they were very / somewhat aware of the impact. The three main challenges around adopting a preventative fall technology programme were cost concerns, technology complexity and resistance to change.

The education piece to close the prevention disconnect.

So, there is a challenge. On the one hand responders overwhelmingly prefer fall prevention technologies over solutions that only help after a fall occurs. And on the other there is a disconnect. Many do value independence but are unsure about the benefits and usability of fall prevention technologies. Our research highlights this - if 80% prefer prevention, but less than 50% are aware of the technologies, there is a clear gap in understanding.

This consumer research indicates a major opportunity to engage with older adults on a preventive basis. While it is often a challenge to deliver effective prevention, and a bigger challenge to identify the down-stream benefits of prevention to elements of the health service/primary care, our research indicates a clear willingness amongst older adults to engage in preventive programmes, particularly if any cost concerns can be minimised or overcome.

Navigating the impending social care crisis through effective prevention – webinar 14 May 2024

Prevention is still a key issue for health and social care providers; however, it can be difficult to define and difficult to deliver. When we talk to our corporate customers and commissioners we understand and empathise with the challenges they are facing, from the relentlessly increasing social and health care needs to the huge pressures on social care budgets and resources.

This webinar hopes to shed light on how Taking Care are delivering practical prevention to its customers and can offer commissioners the practical support to navigate the impending social care crisis through effective prevention.

Join us at this interactive webinar and Q & A panel session to discover how Taking Care, the UK’s leading private pay alarm monitoring provider:

• Have harnessed the power of anonymised alarm user data, Big Data/AI tools to make personal alarms proactive, life-saving devices that help people lead healthier, more independent, and empowering lives in the homes they love for longer
• Use data to make proactive interventions that can be implemented without needing the service user to engage in any new technology or making any extra investment.
• Both understands the barriers to adopting preventive technology are and how you can overcome them quickly, effectively and with minimal investment.

Book your webinar place here. Join the discussion and collect your copy of Taking Care’s latest insight report How Taking Care Deliver Practical Prevention.